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CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW Til KM 



Objects in View in Fruit Thinning. But thinning fruit has 

 objects beyond the value of the visible crop which it makes profit- 

 able..';' No overburdened tree can discharge the twofold summer 

 duty of every cultivated fruit-bearing tree, which is to perfect this 

 season's fruit and lay a good strong foundation for next year's 

 bearing./ If the tree, after fruit gathering, has not the strong, 

 vigorous foliage to complete the formation of fruit buds for the 

 following year, there will either be a lack of bloom or a show of 

 bloom unfit to set, and the tree will work for itself next year, and 

 not for you, because this year you would not work for it. In 

 this particular, thinning fruit coincides in purpose with pruning 

 to limit the amount of bearing wood, which has already been 

 considered. 



Other objects there are also which are related directly to the 

 profit of orcharding and should command respect from the most 

 careless. The following is an emphatic statement of the case :* 



There are at least six ways in which growers are repaid for thinning 

 peaches, nectarines or apricots designed for drying: 



First: You can thin off half the fruit when small quicker than you could 

 pick it when large, and when mature the time required to fill a basket de- 

 pends mainly upon the number of peaches it holds. 



Second: It takes just as long to cut and spread on a drying tray a small 

 peach as a large one. It takes longer to cut eight peaches that will weigh a 

 pound than to cut three and pick off five when they are little. 



Third : If peaches run six to the pound the weight of pits will not vary 

 much from that of the cured fruit. If they run three to the pound, they will 

 weigh not much over half. A ton of large peaches is as likely to yield 400 

 pounds of dried as a ton of small fruit of the same variety to yield 300 

 pounds. It means a difference of about $8.00 per ton in the value of the fresh 

 fruit' to the dryer. It will cost over $1.00 per ton to thin a heavily laden 

 peach orchard in a way to make that difference. 



Fourth: Granted that you leave fruit to reach the same weight at ma- 

 turity, still you leave it along the body and in places on the limbs where the 

 weight has no breaking leverage and take it off the ends where it may get 

 sun-burned and is almost sure to break the tree. 



Fifth : Vitality drawn from the plant and certain elements of fertility 

 from the soil, are in proportion to the number of seeds matured. The pulp 

 cuts little figure except in aerial substances and water. 



Sixth : Suppose that fruit dried from peaches that weigh three to the 

 pound only brings one cent a pound more than that from peaches half that 

 size. Two cents would more accurately measure the difference in value. 

 Still, the smaller figure is enough to meet the whole cost of picking and haul- 

 ing or of cutting and drying in any well-managed establishment. 



When to Thin Fruit. Thinning of fruit should begin with the 

 winter pruning of bearing trees, as has been already urged in con- 

 nection with regulating the amount of bearing wood allotted to 

 each tree. After this is carefully done, there is the thinning of 

 bloom, which is urged on the ground of least possible loss of 

 energy by the tree in the partial development of fruit to be sub- 

 sequently removed. Hand-thinning of individual blooms is im- 

 practicable on a commercial scale, but the removal' of spurs or 



* Condensed from F. S. Chapin. 



